Correlation between Internet usage and academic performance among university students

Abstract

The Internet is a technology that has become a big part of people’s daily living. Through its ability to act as a support medium in the different functions for which people use it, the Internet was introduced to academic institutions as a tool to enhance students’ academic experience in the mid 1990s. Today, the Internet plays a major role in the classroom, from course materials being available online to larger ranges of academic resources being a few clicks away, the influence of the Internet on campus is incontestably felt. This dissertation looks at finding evidence of an association between Internet usage and academic performance among university students. It addresses the need to evaluate whether the Internet is fulfilling the role it was initially brought on campus for. In this dissertation, a qualitative and a quantitative study were developed to measure students’ Internet usage on campus, the reasons for which they use it and how the Internet influences their academic grades. 389 3rd year students from different academic disciplines participated in this study. In summary, the results of this study show that the Internet exerts some influence on students’ academic performance but no link of causality between the two could be established.